The Christmas Spirit
by Motsie of Atlantis
Summary: Nell Jones felt like a character in a Christmas story. She had been invited into a home to visit with two stubborn storybook characters, and she had come to give the dire warning of what would happen if they continued to go along that path. She just hoped that she would not disappear from either of their lives before the morning came, like the three ghosts in 'The Christmas Carol'.


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 **THE CHRISTMAS SPIRIT**

Nell Jones felt like a character in a Christmas story. She had been invited into a home to visit with two set-in-their-ways storybook characters, and she had come to give both of them the dire warning of what would happen if they continued along the path that they felt they had to take She just hoped that she would not disappear from either of their lives before the morning came, like the three ghosts in 'The Christmas Carol'.

 **A/N** : This is written in response to a the story 'Sometimes I Run' by Gina Callen because I felt that she had Callen caving in too easily and I was in more of an anti-Hetty mood at the time.

 **Disclaimer:** The characters and sets of NCIS: LA are all owned by CBS, Donald P. Bellisario, and Shane Brennan. I only own a copy of the DVDs from season 1-6. I do get to play with everyone, but they all have to be home by curfew.

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 **The Christmas Spirit**

 **OSP Mission Headquarters**

You didn't need a knife to cut the tension among those involved in the primary team of the Office of Special Projects, you could do it with a spoon, it was that massive and permeating. Even the lesser techs and night crews could feel it, but they knew well enough not to ask what was causing it, for fear that they might become involved. The number two and three teams operating out of the mission knew something was up too, and it involved the number one team. Otherwise, why would these lesser teams be sent out on all the missions that had come up, and the hot shots be relegated to desk duty?

The members of the number one team had some idea of what was going on, They figured it out that it involved Callen and Hetty, but beyond that, even they didn't want to get involved. It had gotten so bad that Deeks had asked Lieutenant Bates if there was something he could do at the LAPD just so he didn't have to show up at the mission and endure the stress there for one more day. For him to give up his time of sitting across from his partner / friend / lover all day, said a lot for how much anxiety he was trying to avoid.

The detective's partner could not duck out on the underlying apprehension all day long. The best that she could do was to try to meet up with Nell Jones in the women's restroom, where they could talk quietly about the problem. But even there they had to be careful. They wouldn't come right out and say that they thought that Hetty had hidden microphones or cameras or both in all of the restrooms, but they would not have put it past the operations manager.

Nell knew that there were microphones and cameras galore up in Ops, and her talking with her partner, Eric Beale, would be recorded, no matter how quietly she whispered. It wouldn't have helped her to send him texts on his computer, tablet, or phone, because Hetty would see that he would quit working, even if it were just for a moment, to read and reply to her texts. Then the little ninja would run a trace on those texts and read them herself.

Sam was very blunt about it. He wasn't driving Callen back and forth to work, and he knew that something had gone wrong in the man's life. His partner was avoiding him like the plague, and it hurt the big man deeply. Every morning when he came in, he asked Callen the same question, "Do you wanna talk about it?"

Most of the time the younger man would just ignore him. Once or twice he said, "If I wanted to talk about it, I would speak to you. Now, is that what I have been doing for the past couple of days?"

"No, you haven't said much of anything to me," Sam admitted.

"Well, there you have your answer," Callen would tell him, ending the conversation as he shut his partner out once more.

Poor Nell didn't know what to do. Hetty trusted her implicitly. When the Office Manager was called to Washington to answer the questions of the congressional committee, Nell Jones was the recipient of all of Hetty's files. Well, maybe not every one of them, but more than anyone else was ever granted access to.

Nell even got a chance to look at the files that Hetty had with her name on the folder. She was surprised to learn that Hetty knew as much, or even more than Nell herself had been able to find out about herself. The files had traced her back to being placed in Child Protective Services in Baltimore after she and her younger sister Jessica were dropped off with the nuns at The Cathedral of Mary Our Queen Roman Catholic Church one night. She knew that she and Jess were in the system in Baltimore, but never knew where they had been dropped off.

From reading the files, Nell began to realize that, even then, Hetty had her eye on her. Maybe it was part of the older lady's inclination to collect orphans and strays, maybe she showed flashes of her high IQ even at this young age. Whatever it was, Hetty had taken a big chance on her. As she looked back on her life, she saw the hand of the operations manager, leading, guiding, influencing her life, never directly, but she did recognize the names of some of Hetty's agents. These people were there for her while she was in prison for killing her step-father, and also while she attended college: psychologists, guidance counselors, advisors, everywhere along the way of her young life. All of it seemed channeled to get her into the position that she now occupied, political analyst and sometime agent in training, at the Office of Special Projects for NCIS.

But on the other side of the coin, the political analyst had entered into a relationship with the chief senior agent. It had started out as an undercover operation to stop some navy personnel who were trafficking in young women from the Philippines for sexual slaves. While the two of them were alone together, preparing for their roles in the sting, the young woman bared her soul to Callen, telling him everything that she had previously hidden from the team about her past life. Instead of pushing her away, the man drew her close to him and comforted her, telling her those past experiences made her who and what she was today. The peace and relaxation she felt in his arms were so comforting, she allowed herself to bare her body to him. Both of them found a safe haven in each other's arms.

Their relationship was still early in its development stage. The lease on her apartment had recently run out and she had moved into the house where he spent three happy months while he was growing up, a house that Hetty had arranged for him to buy. The age difference between the two of them was larger than most. The job that each one had put tremendous strains on their time together. They both still had issues with self-worth, that forced them to build up huge, massive walls to protect their tender hearts. Although some of these walls had been taken down, they could easily be replaced and reinforced at a moment's notice.

Hetty once mentioned that Nell had the highest IQ score in all of NCIS, but as intelligent as she was, the young woman could not figure out how to deal with these two people. Nell had deep feelings for both of them. She couldn't hurt either one. How could she take sides? The one she would choose would feel vindicated, and the other would feel abandoned and rejected. That was something that she did not wish on either person. But she still could not figure a way to deal with both of them that would not alienate one, the other, or both. This just added to the normal stress of her job. But she couldn't just leave it when she shut down her computer, grabbed her bag and started home. Since Callen was there with her all night, she had to deal with this 24/7. The normally cheerful and lighthearted pixie was quickly being reduced to a snippety, bad tempered person. It was fast getting to the point where she could no longer stand herself.

The breaking point came when Sam waited for her to come down from Ops to get a cup of tea. He quickly got up from his desk and steered the young woman into an empty office after she had filled her cup.

"What the heck are you doing, Sam?" she snapped at him when he closed the door.

"I'm sorry, Nell, but you are our last hope. You gotta fix it," the big agent said.

"Fix what!" she growled.

"You know, whatever is going on between Hetty and Callen. It's eating away at all of us."

"You're his partner. Why don't you take care of it?" she asked.

"I've tried, believe me. All he wants to do is shut me out. It gets worse and worse each day."

"And what makes you think that I will succeed where you can't?" she asked sarcastically.

"Nell, you are the smartest person I know. You are close to both of them. If you can't do it, it just can't be done. And if it can't be done, we might as well fold up shop here and call it quits."

"You think it has gotten that far already?" she asked.

"Look around you, and you tell me." after a few moments of silence, Sam grabbed the doorknob and left to go back to his desk.

Nell pondered the words of his conclusion as she took her mug of tea to her downstairs computer station. Callen came walking toward her, on his way to get a cup of coffee, the look on his face telling her his thoughts were on something unpleasant. The pixie tried to lift his spirits, giving him one of her huge smiles. The man bowled past her, completely ignoring her as if she wasn't even there. Nell spun around, looking at his back, her smile changed to a look of sadness, feeling how deep the problem had burrowed into his life.

There was only one desperate thing that she could try, and she was not looking forward to it at all. Hetty was known as the Duchess of Deception and Callen could break down any lies or misstatements in the interrogation room. It would be completely foolhardy for Nell to try to assume the role that Deeks once titled her with - the Marquesa of Misdirection - and try to run game on both these people. She had used it to fool Owen Granger when Hetty was called to Washington and Callen was trapped in the narco-sub. But now she would be going up against the experts. These people could see into her very soul and expose her if she was telling the truth or not. Still, desperate times called for desperate measures, and Nell was almost beyond desperate to get this worked out. She was afraid that Sam was right, and that this could be the crisis that would be the end of OSP.

 **. . . . .**

 **Hetty's Office, OSP**

A few days before the Christmas shutdown, Nell was in Hetty's office going over all the necessary things that still needed to be done, before the OSP would be officially stood down for the holidays.

"Are you planning on going back to see your adopted family again this year, Ms Jones?" Hetty asked when most of the planning was completed.

"No, last year was hard enough for them when Eric and I visited them," Nell admitted.

"Whatever do you mean?" Hetty probed.

"You know that I took Eric along back with me. I thought he knew that he was going undercover as my boyfriend. For the longest time, I think he tried to make it a reality, not just a hoax to keep my family from worrying about me and coming out here to make sure there was a man in my life."

"He doesn't hold it against you anymore, does he?" Hetty asked.

"I explained it to him several times when we were alone back there. I think a couple of my relatives took him aside and told him that he was too good for me. I treated him miserably, Hetty. I belittled him, contradicted him constantly, and generally treated him like a dog, not a human being. No one could believe that little sweet Nell could act so much like a witch. Actually, they used a different name for me; you can just imagine what it was."

"All this to make sure they didn't come out here to visit you?" Hetty asked arching her eyebrow.

"That and not wanting them to interfere in my life by wanting to check out my boyfriends and pass judgment on them."

"Well, I can understand why they might not want you to come back and destroy the holiday festivities."

"So I guess that all we are going to do over the holidays is go over to Sam's on Christmas Eve and spend the night with his family. The rest of the time we will just stay at home by ourselves.I kinda wished that we would have gotten to see what you considered to be a truly 'majestic' tree,"

"Well, it is customary for Callen to come over during the holidays to share a meal with me. Certainly, since the two of you are together, that would also include you."

"Well, Callen really didn't know how you felt about us being together. He claimed that as long as we didn't receive an invitation, he didn't want to force our romance upon you or anyone else."

"Well, Ms Jones, if that's what it takes to get you the opportunity to see my majestic tree and share a meal at my house, you shall have it. You can expect an invitation in the mail. Would there be any day that would be more convenient for the two of you?"

"Not really, maybe the Saturday or Sunday following Christmas Day? All the hustle and bustle of the holiday will be over and it should be a more relaxing time."

"That sounds like a fine idea. I will plan for it then."

With nothing more to deal with, Nell rose and went up to Ops. She was breathing heavily, not believing that she had made it through that ordeal. She actually played Hetty. Now all she had to do is get Callen to agree. She didn't know if it would be harder to crack his shell or not.

 **. . . . .**

 **Callen's Home in Glendale**

Two days later the invitation from Hetty arrived. Callen plucked the envelope out of the mailbox and recognized from whom it came. Without opening it, he tossed it into the bowl on the small table in the hallway near the door. Nell found it there and knew that she had her work cut out for her.

"What's this?" she asked as she held up the envelope.

"Something from Hetty. I haven't opened it up yet," he answered, as he headed toward the bedroom to change.

"It's addressed to both of us. Can I open it?"

"Do whatever you want with it. I really don't care about another Christmas card." His voice was raised a bit, but Nell couldn't tell if it was because he was two rooms away and wanted her to hear, or if he was upset by getting something from Hetty.

Opening it up, she called to him, "Hey, G, it's not just a Christmas Card. She is inviting us over for a meal the Saturday after Christmas."

"I don't know," he said, coming back into the room. "I thought that this year we would spend most of our time together here at home."

"Well, you said that we are going to Sam's on Christmas Eve to celebrate with his family. But beyond that, we aren't going anywhere, are we?"

"Nope, just a nice quiet holiday by ourselves."

"Will Sam have a decorated tree, since we aren't going to have one?"

"Yeah, he always has one for Kamran. She expects her dad to get one that she can help decorate."

"But is it 'majestic'? Hetty keeps complaining that the trees we have at the mission year after year are never 'majestic'. I can only remember seeing one tree that I could call 'majestic' when I was in college. While I was growing up in the prison system, we only had an artificial tree that got more broken and patchy every year. Whenever I see 'A Charlie Brown Christmas', that is the tree I think of. You told me last year how lovely Hetty's tree was. I would really love to see her idea of 'majestic'.

"I don't know. I really don't feel like running around too much this holiday season." Callen said as he flopped down in the corner of the couch.

"Pleeeease, pretty pleeeease; I'll even put brown sugar and honey on it?" the little woman begged, as she sat down next to him on the couch and leaned into his chest while batting her big amber eyes at him. She kept badgering him, knowing that all she had left in her arsenal to try to make him change his mind would have to occur in the bedroom. But if this did not work, she was prepared to pull out all the stops. Getting Hetty and Callen together to deal with this problem was far too important for her, and for them.

Callen knew that he couldn't hold out long against her. Those beautiful eyes of hers had a habit of working their way inside him, melting all the frozen icy feelings he had toward Hetty and replaced it with the pleasant glow of her love.

Finally, he gave in to the pixie, "Okay, Nell, if it means that much to you, we will go over to Hetty's house. And before you start to pester me about it, I will try to be civil while we are there.

Callen saw the big smile that appeared on Nell's face. He thought it was there because she had gotten him to give in to her. He was just partially correct. Her smile was more for the fact that both parts of the plan had fallen in place. She had just played the two biggest players in NCIS to get them together so that this could get worked out. Now all she had to do was find the courage to face them both down and tell them what they needed to hear.

 **. . . . .**

 **Dovecote, Hetty's Home in Hollywood**

The day arrived for them to go and spend the evening meal with Hetty. Callen groused when Nell made him dress up with a jacket and button-down blue dress shirt. When they arrived, Hetty hurried them into the dining room, since all the food had already been laid out on the table. They sat down and began to pass the serving plates around, smoked turkey and gravy, mashed potatoes, garlic buttered peas with pearl onions, a veritable feast. The aroma of the food was extremely tempting, but the flavors were impeccable, as one would expect from this demanding lady.

 _At least, the food is warm,_ Nell thought to herself, _compared to Callen and Hetty, who ate in ice-cold silence._

When the meal was over, Nell asked if they could go and see what type of tree Hetty would consider to be 'majestic'. Hetty asked them to wait there for a few minutes while she prepared a pot of tea for them to enjoy in front of the tree. After she went back into the kitchen, Callen looked at Nell and whispered, "How much longer do we have to stay here?" The pixie noticed at least two of his 'tells' that showed he was uncomfortable being cooped up in this house and wanted to escape.

"Let's just try to enjoy one cup of tea and look at the tree for a little bit. Then we can take our leave," Nell whispered back. She had no intention on leaving right away, but she didn't indicate how much time 'a little bit' in front of the tree would take.

Their host brought in a serving tray with a teapot and three cups on saucers that she set down at one end of the dining room table. Then she led them into her great room and turned out the room lights, in order for them to get the full effect of her 'majestic' tree. She returned to get the tea set and left her guests to take in the view of the tree.

Nell had to admit, that it truly was majestic, in fact, it was unbelievably awesome. The tree was a Colorado blue spruce, fully symmetrical, with absolutely no bare spots or shortened branches. The waxy grey-green needles, with tints of pale blue, gave off a wonderful scent to the room that just exuded the smell of Christmas. All the glass globes on the tree were white, giving a vague hinting of the snow that never came here in Los Angeles. The tree was lit by hundreds of tiny little white lights, giving it a fairy-princess glimmering.

But what truly set this tree off was the angel crowning its peak. It was handmade, but from this distance, Nell could not really make out many of the details. It looked like there were three figures there, an angel in the center whose wings covered two small blond-haired children.

After oohing and ahhing over the tree, Nell asked about the angel on top. "I have never seen an angel like that, Hetty. It is the perfect treasure to top off the tree."

Callen looked up at the angel for the first time. "I don't think I have ever seen you use that angel to top one of your trees. Have you had it for a long time?"

"It is one that I have had for a while. I don't bring it out very often because it is a sort of heirloom for me."

"It looks hand-made. May I ask you where you got it?" Nell inquired.

"I got it from one of the caretakers at the Homeless Angels Mission School Orphanage in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, before the breakup of the country. He would carve these wooden angels to help earn money for the school. Unfortunately, he died and the school was destroyed during the breakup."

Nell immediately looked at Callen, but she could tell that he really wasn't listening to Hetty. Nell wondered if those two children could have been… No, his mother was killed in Romania. He and Amy would have been placed in care there if anywhere. She filed away this information to be further investigated when she had more resources available to her.

Hetty poured the tea, and they sat on the couch, silently contemplating their thoughts. Nell finally felt that this had gone on long enough. She could lose everything, her job, and her boyfriend/lover, with what she was about to say. But it needed to be said. She cared too much about the both of them to hold back any longer. Perhaps, in time, they would look upon her without pain and animosity filling their memories of her.

Nell took one final sip of her tea and set her cup down on the coffee table. She got up and walked around to the other side, standing right in front of the tree. Fisting her hands and placing them on her hips, she looked intently at the two people who were now staring at her.

"You know," Nell began, "the two of you are so much alike you could really be mother and son. I am so disappointed in both of you. This is the time of warm and happy feelings, and both of you are sitting there, bitter and hurting and blaming the other one. And it's not just affecting the two of you, it's touching the hearts and lives of everyone in OSP."

Hetty's eyes grew wide. She had never heard Nell speak in this manner to her. Callen had faced her wrath before, but he would have never guessed that she would sound off like this in front of Hetty. Nell saw the astonishment in their faces and knew that she couldn't back down now.

"Look at him closely, Hetty." When the elderly lady just took another sip of tea, Nell stared at her with that same gorgon stare that she used so effectively on others. Nell had learned it well, because Hetty started to fidget where she was sitting. "Hetty, I asked you to look at Callen," she asked again, her voice a little louder. "What do you see there?"

"I see Mr. Callen," she answered.

"I didn't ask who you saw, I asked what you saw when you looked at him," Nell said rather bluntly.

"I don't understand what you mean." was her reply.

"Hetty, I've read the files you have on Callen. I know that you took him in when he was only fifteen years old. Sometimes I think you still see him like that, a teenager still wet behind the ears. Look close at him. He is a man, forty-five years old. That man knows most of the facts of life. He's been around the block a couple of times already. Hell, he's been to most of the capitals of the countries in Eastern Europe. How much longer do you feel that you are going to have to protect him?"

Hetty looked at the younger woman standing there and had a defiant look on her face, "As long as he needs my protection, Ms Jones."

"I don't want to hear that you're protecting him, or that you're doing it for his own good. Don't you realize that he is a man? He's not a mama's boy who still needs his mama to watch out for him and fight his battles," Nell said bitterly. "You want to keep him in the nest forever, to hide him under your wings and make sure he is always safe. What you need to do is let him leave the nest. He has to learn how to fly on his own, to protect himself, to keep himself safe. You have to teach him these things and then let him do them on his own. If you have done a proper job, he will always return to you and thank you and love you."

"I can't guarantee that he will come back, unless I'm there to help and protect him," Hetty said, defending herself.

"You can't keep him in the nest forever. What if our relationship becomes serious, and we get married, are you gonna start protecting me like that too, because you know that I'm gonna hate it just as much as he does. What about our children and grandchildren? Are you gonna be around to protect her when my granddaughter gets scared of the boogeyman under her bed? What about their children after them? Will you still be around when you're over a hundred-years-old, trying to protect them?"

Hetty looked at her, her face showing this would be one of her biggest fears. "Don't you think I know that, and that frightens me more than anything else in this business," her voice almost verging on despair.

"Hetty, You can't be making all of the decisions for him. You do that for a child. For a man, you lay out all the positives and negatives that can affect the decision. Then it is up to that man to decide what is best for his own life, not you. He is the one who will have to live with the consequences of the decision. And if you decide for him, you will have to shoulder his blame and possibly even his hatred because of the outcome."

Hetty had looked like she was going to say something in her defense. Instead, she closed her mouth and hung her head, thinking about all that Nell had said to her. She knew that the younger woman was right in everything that she had said. Giving up the protection and control of Callen's life was just so hard for her to do. It just hurt so much when someone else could see right through her and tell her exactly what she had been doing wrong.

"And you," the redheaded woman said, pointing at Callen, who tried quickly to get rid of the smirk that had been on his face while she was lambasting Hetty. "If you wanted to be treated like an adult and not a child, you have to act like an adult. It's hard and somewhat scary to have to grow up. Right now you are acting like a little kid who didn't get what he wanted so he is gonna sit and sulk. You claim that she is the closest thing you have to a mother right now. Can't you see that she is doing these things because she loves you?"

"Callen looked over at Hetty and glared. "She says she does, but I am beginning to wonder. I think she is just doing it to keep me under her control."

Nell continued to interrogate him, "What was your response when you didn't get what you wanted from your mother? Did you sit down and talk about it, like an adult, or even a reasonable child? No, what you did was act like a little kid, you ran away from home."

"I wasn't acting like a little child. I was going to Arkady to see if he had any answers for me, I told her I was on sick leave, just didn't want Hetty to get in trouble over it," he pleaded with her.

Nell just looked at the floor and shook her head. When she looked up at Callen again, she had the saddest expression on her face that he had ever seen. "Were you sick, Callen?"

"No, not physically," he admitted.

"So, you lied to Hetty." It was a statement, not a question.

"I did it to protect her," Callen said defensively.

"Do... you... hear... what... you... just... said?" Nell asked, drawing each one of the words out, so they would sink in. "You wanted her to talk, but she wouldn't, to protect you, so you walked away. Then she wanted to talk, but you wouldn't, to protect her, and continued walking." Again her head dropped as she continued shaking it in resignation. "All I see is two stubborn, hard-headed fools that keep doing, not what they need to do, but rather, what they think the other one wants."

"She didn't have to hit me with the taser. She promised me that she would never intentionally hurt me, but then she did that."

Nell looked him directly in the eye as she asked, "Were you running away from her?"

Callen's no longer looked her in the eye as he answered, "Yes."

"Did she ask you to stop," Nell continued.

"Yeah," he said, quieter than before.

"And did you?"

"No."

"So she tried to get your attention?"

Callen looked up at her and almost shouted, "But it hurt. It hurt a lot."

"Sometimes a parent has to do that with a child that won't listen. 'Don't touch the stove, it's hot,' a mother tells her son. The boy reaches out to touch the stove. The mother slaps his hand away. The boy complains because the slap hurt. Was the mother wrong for slapping him?"

"I guess not."

"Callen, you are so quick to go off by yourself as a lone wolf. That way nobody can tell you anything. But nobody can help you either. You are looking for your family. When you go off on your own, your family has to go looking for you. Family members help and accept help from one another. They talk to each other and rely on each other."

"I do that with the people of my family. The team knows that I care about them."

"But you are also a part of that family. Part of the reason you go off the reservation is out of the same damn obligation that you feel when you go out on the missions. You have so much worry and concern about the safety of others, that you forget about your own damn safety."

Callen started to open his mouth, but Nell shook her finger at him, shushing him. "Don't try to deny it or look at me that way. You forget that when I am up in Ops, I have to watch and listen to it all. I also see the after mission reports, and I don't mean the damn ones you fill out and turn in to Hetty, that I have to archive for the NCIS files. No, I mean the ones that play out in your nightmares those few hours that you do sleep. How many times have we been in bed in the middle of the night, when a shudder wracks your body or a scream rips its way out from your lungs? How many times have I had to bring you back to reality from the horrors of your mind?" Nell was almost crying when she said this.

Hetty's head snapped around to look at him in surprise. Callen could not look at either woman. He knew what Nell had said was true. There had been several nights when it was only Nell's rough and violent shaking of his body and the frantic calling of his name, that brought him back from the edge of the abyss, from which he knew there was no return.

"Callen, please," Nell's whispered sobs were barely heard. "Oh, Callen...please," she said a bit louder when he appeared not to have heard. Still there was no reaction from the man. "She gave you an olive branch, Callen." But he just sat there, shaking his head, refusing to acknowledge her gentle voice.

Nell finally got angry with him. He no longer wanted to listen to what she had to say. Fine. One last thing and he wouldn't have to listen to her any longer. "Callen, look at the damn angel on the top of Hetty's tree. The angel might not be Hetty, but that is you and Amy as the two kids under her wings. Am I right, Hetty?"

There was a tear in Hetty's a lump in her throat. She couldn't say a word and just nodded.

Callen got up from the couch and went over to the tree to look closer at the angel. After inspecting it from as many different angles as he could, he turned toward Hetty and asked in a very soft voice, "That's really us?"

She again nodded and swallowed hard, and started to talk in a very mother-like voice, "I found out where they hid the two of you after your mother had been killed, but when I went there, this was the only thing I found. I then traced where you had been placed in this country, but I didn't realize that Amy was had been sent somewhere else."

"I'm so sorry, Mom," the man said, with tears flowing from his eyes.

Hetty opened her arms and hugged him, welcoming her son back into her heart. The two of them stood there, the lights of the tree twinkling in the tears flowing down each of their faces.

 **. . . . .**

Neither of them noticed that Nell had her phone out and was just completing a call.

"I'm gonna wait outside for my cab," she said to them. Looking at Callen with obvious tears being held back only by sheer willpower, she said, "I will be over tomorrow afternoon to clear out my clothes. You can keep all the furniture. I don't know where I am going so I really won't need it."

Callen looked at her in shock, not knowing what to say.

"And, Hetty, I will clear out all my stuff at OSP later tomorrow. I will leave my resignation notice on your desk. You can either use that or terminate me, however you want to do it."

She took out her credentials and weapon, and laid them on the coffee table, then put on her coat and started walking toward the door.

Callen jumped up and stopped her. "Just where exactly do you think you are going?" he asked her. He had grabbed her by the arms and just pulled her into his hug.

Nell's tears started flowing once more. "I've messed up your life enough, Callen. I made you choose between me and Hetty. I'm sorry. I should never have done that," she said, as she tried to get away from him.

Hetty got up and joined them, putting her hand on Nell's arm. "Nonsense child. If that were true, I would have never chosen you for your position. You have been nothing but good for him."

Callen refused to let Nell out of his arms. "Hetty," he said, looking at the shorter woman. "Most of what Nell said was true. You are the closest person I have to being my mother. I will always love you for that, and consider my parental home to be wherever you are. But I think it is finally time that I leave your nest and form a home of my own. With someone that I love as much as you, just in a different way. Someone who might become the mother of my children and your grandchildren.

A twinkle came to Hetty's eye, as she asked him, "And do you have anyone in mind for that position, Mr. Callen?"

After wiping away the tears from her eyes and giving Nell a very passionate kiss, "Yeah, Mom. I do. This little pixie right here, my very own Christmas Spirit."

 **Finish**


End file.
